It’s hard to win in the game of paying taxes

With the baby boomer generation approaching retirement the media is constantly bombarding them with financial advice to save or invest. Dire warnings are constantly broadcast of how much money is needed to live.

My question is why? We have taxes taken out of our wage package, the money that remains is ours to use as we see fit. Now here is where the fun begins. If or when investments are made the tax man is there to take a portion of any profits that are made by the dividends from time of investment or from profits of the stock sale. This is synonymous with the story of Sisyphus who rolls a boulder up hill only to have it roll back down. The more we save and invest the more we are taxed.

The goal of retired people is to sit back and enjoy their last days after retirement, not to be rich but to reward themselves with things that were sacrificed in their earlier years. As an old philosopher once stated, “Nobody said life is fair”.

Robert A. Vlazny

Hoffman Estates